Artist : Cloutier
Song : I Look Good
Album : This Is A Very Good Album Of Rap Music
Production Company : Underground Planet

I’m not even sure where to start talking about this one! I guess I’ll start by saying it was a frikkin awesome and hilarious shoot despite it all being shot in one very long 14 hour day.

From the first listen there were obvious similarities between this and Macklemore’s Thrift Shop. Humorous white guy rap about wearing cheap, unorthodox cloths. It was natural to try to do things somewhat opposite of what was done before. Instead of clothes that actually make someone “Look Good” it was the main idea out of the gate to just make him look as ridiculous and not-good as possible. Which led me to cutting him a quick message asking “Has anyone wore an octopus as underwear in a music video?” To which I got just about the best response ever “octopus underwear? Fuck yes.”

We came up with a handful of small gags but also wanted to balance out some of the stupidity with some mainstream sexy slickness. Hence the incredible Ibiza After Dark scenes. An incredible club with the perfect ambiance and state of the art lighting. Huge thanks to them and owner Charlie Salinas for treating us so well. The sexy was a three prong attack, yea, I know, that sounded dumb to me to. Early on we enlisted the help of the ever so popular model and personality Brooke Banx, hadn’t worked with her in forever so was stoked she signed on. And a late casting but huge find was Colette Stone, she played several roles but the acting in the grill scene was just perfect.

And the last piece of the sexy equation was set up through the incomparable Kelly Gray and her team of dancers “The GoGo Gadgettes.” It was real important to me that we not just have random gorgeousness but that we had a collection of dancers that could work out a routine and bring into it all the fun that we were hoping for, which they delivered ten times over. I also wanted a cohesive but different look and since Kelly makes all of their outfits, duh. The choreography, which was frikkin impeccable, was handled by Christian Casas. HUGE thanks to all the GoGo Gadgetts in the vid, Kelly Gray, Christian Casas, Hannah Dye, Mandi Mobley, Inna Grudtcina, Natalie Cruz.

The tattoo scene was filmed at Shanghai Kate’s Tattoos, a great shop that I plan on returning to for some ink in the hopefully not so distant future. Real deal tattooist Donny Silverman was super fun to work with, loved his idea for wearing shades while doing the tattoo and working in the horrible and hilarious little moment where he actually licks his them to clean up part of the area he was fake tattooing. And if ya pay close attention Shanghai Kate Hellenbrand herself made an appearance, lovingly held Cloutier’s hand for comfort as he got inked.

And we can’t forget “P” the puppet. I honestly have no recollection where the idea of having a semi-phallic puppet came from but I’m glad it did. For that I once again called on Matt Valentine of Global Fear Enterprises Both he and his brother Michael Faust did all the costumes and makeup for a previous video I did for Free Agent – I’m A Monster. And as a side note if you’re a horror or sci-fi buff and their names sound familiar it’s because they both appeared, albeit separately, on SyFy’s Face Off. Back to “P” somehow he was able to pull off exactly what I was hoping for, actually better than I was hoping for, in less than a week. The squishy faces that “P” manages crack me up every time. It’s amazing how much personality that puppet has.

There are a ton of other thanks to be made. Scott Ward (who actually was the werewolf in the aforementioned “I’m A Monster” video) for showing up and waiting hours only to get on his hands and knees with his hand in a penis puppet for what I think were the funniest three seconds of the vid. And to all the great extras who showed up that really add so much to the vid though it’s long hours, few if any hero shots, but simply wouldn’t be the same without. Bonus props to those that when I did a quick “I’m gonna roll the camera and anyone who wants to jump in, dance ten seconds, then jump out for the next.” Man did they show up strong =)

Some of my usual “couldn’t do this without” folks that I gotta thank and love. My awesome loyal badass super crew Arturo Cavazos and Eliazar Mendoza and Devona Ploeger who jumped in last minute to make Cloutier every bit as good and horrible as he did.

SO, check out his site, like his Facebook page, and buy his music! Supporting independent artists makes you feel good =)

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